Another reason I love Flickr’s Explore page is that it lacks the commercialism of other spaces. Instagram has an explore tab but it’s popular music and tv stars and their dogs or it’s brand advertising-driven shots cooked up to sell something. There’s something so completely boring about Instagram’s explore page that makes me ignore it and go back to my friend feeds, whereas Flickr is the opposite: my friend feed is largely silent, but the best of the best page is truly awe-inspiring and at least one photo each day is going to take my breath away.
I’ve been a Flickr Pro subscriber since 2005. That’s around $300 I’ve spent but today, Flickr hosts 25,000 of my favorite photos. When I scroll through 150,000 photos on my Mac’s Photos application, it’s everything. Flick is my favorite work and it’s addictive.
The Flickr community is much smaller than it once was but there are people who mean to be there. Once a service is no longer cool, those that really want to be there are the most passionate and amazing users. They know Snap, Facebook and Twitter aren’t photo services. Flickr has remained insulated from Yahoo! I hope the new ownership doesn’t kill it.